Painting: The Smoke Signal Artist: Frederic Remington 1861-1909 Year painted: 1905 Medium: Oil on Canvas Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Background Information on the Artist

Frederic Sackrider Remington was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer who specialized in the American Old West. He focused primarily on the last quarter of the 19th century’s cowboys, Native Americans and the U.S. Cavalry. Frederic Remington was born on October 4, 1861 in Canton, N.Y. His father was Seth Pierre Remington, a colonel in the Civil War, who became a newspaper editor and postmaster. His mother Clara Bascomb Sackrider’s family owned a number of hardware stores. He was an only child. Remington’s father spent the first four years of his life fighting in the Civil War. When his father returned he told his son stories from the war. He started to draw and sketch soldiers and cowboys at an early age. Frederic was a stocky, mischievous boy who was a natural athlete and ring leader. He liked to hunt, swim, ride horses and go camping, not spend time indoors in school. His father wanted to send Frederic to West Point, so he sent him to a number of military academies. His father hoped these military schools would rein in Frederic’s lack of focus but Frederic was a poor student. He did not do well in math and his father had to rethink his plans. At one of the military academies, Vermont Episcopal Institute, Remington took his first drawing lessons. He would make caricatures and silhouettes of his classmates. He imagined that he would become a journalist and create art on the side. Remington attended the art school at Yale University as the only one in the freshman class. Frederic, however, found that playing football and boxing were much more interesting than going to formal art training. His football career was a great source of pride for Remington and his family. He left Yale in 1879 to take care of his sick father who had tuberculosis. His father died at the age of forty-six. After his father’s death, Remington had a number of different jobs. It was because of his inability to find a steady job that his girlfriend Eva Caton’s father would not let them marry. Living off his inheritance and modest work income, Remington refused to go back to art school and spent his time camping and enjoying himself. Remington worked a number of different jobs but just “couldn’t find himself”. In 1881, on a whim, Remington visited the Montana Territory. He saw vast prairies, the shrinking buffalo herds, and the last major battles between the U.S. Cavalry and the Native Americans. The West was changing quickly and Remington wanted to record what he saw. Frederic drew a picture called Cowboys of Arizona Roused by a Scout on a piece of wrapping paper and mailed it to a New York magazine, Harper’s Weekly. It was printed on the magazine’s cover in 1882. Remington bought a sheep ranch in Kansas but he found ranching boring and rough and it kept him from the finer things in life. He continued to sketch while he was there. After less than a year he sold the ranch and went home. In 1884 he married Eva Caton after asking her two more times to marry him. Remington returned to Kansas with Eva and tried his hand at a few other businesses; a hardware store and then a saloon. When his wife realized his occupation, she returned back to New York. With his wife gone and his businesses failing, Remington decided in earnest to sketch and paint for a living. After achieving success in Kansas, Remington decided to come home and reunited with his wife. They moved to Brooklyn so Remington could enter the Art Students League of New York to bolster his art skills. Remington’s timing was excellent because newspapers were interested in the dying West. Remington was able to submit illustrations, sketches and other works for prominent magazines. His western experiences and his breezy personality gained him credibility and helped him establish his career. He became famous for Western scenes. He made many trips back to the West to get ideas for his work. Harper’s Weekly sent him in 1886 on commission as an artist-reporter to cover the government’s war on Geronimo. In 1887 Remington traveled to Canada to produce illustrations of the Blackfoot, Crow Nation and Canadian Mounties. He later in that year received a commission to do eighty-three illustrations for a book by Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. This assignment gave Remington’s career a big boost and forged a lifelong connection with Roosevelt. Remington showed his work in art exhibitions at this time also. Art critics were beginning to take notice of his distinctive and modern style and his ability to handle complex compositions. In 1888 Remington achieved a public honor having two of his paintings used for reproduction on U.S. stamps. In 1889 he solidified his reputation as a trendsetter in Western art when he was selected over Albert Bierstadt by an American committee to represent the U.S. in the Paris Exposition and he won a second class medal. Remington was considered a “bona fide expert in cowboy and Indian scout” an exaggeration that Remington did not deny. He allowed and encouraged the myths surrounding his time out West and used this fame to promote his paintings and gain him celebrity in New York’s banquet and party scene. Though it was helpful to his career, that lifestyle caused Remington to become obese, a problem he battled all his life. Standing 5’9” he weighed 300 pounds. In 1890 Remington and his wife moved to New Rochelle, N.Y. to have a larger studio and greater living space. Their home was still close To New York City publishers but it was rural enough that Remington could ride his horses and engage in much needed exercise. Remington’s fame made him a favorite with the Western Army officers fighting the last Indian battles. He was invited out West to make their portraits on the field and to gain them national attention through his articles for Harper’s Weekly. Remington got exclusive access to the soldiers and their stories. Remington arrived on the scene in 1890 just after the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in which one hundred fifty Sioux women and children were killed and hailed the Army’s actions as “heroic”. Remington’s attitude toward Native Americans was typical for the time. Frederic continued through the 1890’s traveling out to western U.S., Mexico and abroad to gather ideas for his illustrations and articles but the military and cowboy subjects sold the best. He would bring objects back from his trips to his studio as models for his work. He even put barn doors on his studio so he could bring in horses to draw. Remington’s art work always had a 360 degree sense of vision but it wasn’t until a playwright named Augustus Thomas in 1895 commented on his work did Remington think about sculpture. He had no training for sculpture but his friend and sculptor Frederick Ruckstull helped him create his first piece. It took Remington several months to perfect his technique but he was able to sell his first pieces to Tiffany’s. Remington was excited about his new line of work. He made twenty-two sculptures in all. The first ones were made by sand casting and the latest ones with the lost-wax process. His sculptures are currently prized by collectors and museums. Remington was irritated that critics of his day considered his sculpture with mixed reviews and he was also irritated by his rejection into the Academy of American Artists because of his “popular, ostentatious image”. He did keep up his contact with celebrities and politicians and continued to stay in Theodore Roosevelt’s (who was the NYC Police Commissioner at the time) friendship by sending him free editions of his works. This friendship paid off for Remington when the Spanish American War broke out, Remington became a war correspondent and illustrator. He was able to witness the Battle of San Juan Hill by American forces led by Roosevelt. In 1900 Harper’s Weekly dropped Remington as its star artist so Remington wrote and illustrated a book to compensate for the loss of work. He was picked up by Collier’s Magazine and sold more illustrations. As his style matured he created more pictures in every light of day. His nocturnal paintings became very popular and were more impressionistic. In 1905 Remington had a major publicity coup when Collier’s devoted an entire issue to Remington showcasing his work. After the financial panic of 1907 magazine sales slowed causing the need for Remington’s illustrations to slow as well. In 1908 with the popularity of fantasy artists such as Maxfield Parrish, demand for Old West illustrations like Remington’s declined. Remington was disappointed and one night decide to burn a number of his paintings used as illustrations in a bonfire in his background. Near the end of his life Remington moved to Ridgefield, C.T. and in his final two years of life he began to paint more impressionistic paintings. Because of his declining health, he wasn’t able to join many of his fellow painters and paint “plein air” (outside). Remington died after an emergency appendectomy led to peritonitis on December 26, 1901. His extreme weight (nearly 300 lbs.) has complicated the surgery and led to his death. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Canton, N.Y. where he grew up. The Smoke Signal 1905 Oil on Canvas 30 ½ x 48 ¼ inches

Background on The Smoke Signal:

The Plains Indians possessed amazing skills at communications. They developed a code using a small number of devices which enabled them to send messages over great diseases. Close by, the Native Americans would use a blanket or a robe to show the movement of a buffalo herd when a number were hunting. When the distances were greater, reflections in a mirror or a polished knife blade alerted others to danger. On clear windless days, when Native Americans wanted to send messages a great distance, they used smoke signals. By burning buffalo chips or prairie grass, Native Americans could use this practical system for sending messages especially if the terrain between the two parties was hilly or of there were trees. Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, who served more than thirty-three years on the frontier and in 1882 published a popular account of his experiences, described the process: “A small fire is built on which is placed damp grass, creating a large volume of smoke. As it begins to ascend a blanket is held horizontally above it, and when the space beneath is quite full, the blanket is slipped off sideways and then quickly brought back to its place. Smoke managed in this way ascends in round puffs, miniature clouds, one meaning one thing, two another.” Remington has depicted this operation in this painting precisely as Dodge described it. “A single smoke, ascending naturally, is a warning to all Indians within range of vision that there are strangers in the country,” Dodge explained. The colonel also noted that a signal fire was made on the side or the top of a high hill, away from sources of water- as the three warriors have done in the painting- to prevent the signal being confused with the smoke of a campfire. In Remington’s Smoke Signal, the Native Americans are sending military signals. It is not sure what the message was. With the rifles in the foreground, the painted, feathered adorned Crow warriors stripped themselves to essential clothing and weapons and the bobtailed horses (tied horses’ tails with feathers) suggest a war party not a hunting mission. The red handprint on the white horse’s rump signified to some plains tribes that its rider had “ridden over an enemy” in battle. Despite Remington’s customary attention to detail, there seem to be some mistakes. The high pommels and cantles on the saddles mark them as women’s saddles, rather than those used by men. Also, the warrior on the left has a single-edged knife in a tack-decorated sheath; it looks more like a typical women’s skinning knife than the two- edged “beaver tail” knife that were favored by the men of the tribe. The Smoke Signal was made into a commemorative stamp in 1961 to celebrate Remington’s birthday. The proceeds of the sale of the stamp went to maintaining the Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, N.Y. To stamp collectors this stamp was important because this was the first time the United States Post Office Department reproduced a work of art in full color.

Discussion Questions for the Classroom on The Smoke Signal: What time of day is this and how do you know? Daytime, light blue sky, shadows by the Native Americans and horses What kind of sounds do you expect to hear? Horses hooves, fire crackling, horse snorting and whinnying, quiet talking of Native Americans What colors do you see? Blue, red, orange, black, gray, brown, tan, rust, white, yellow What kind of shapes or lines do you see? Diagonal lines- guns, horizon lines, smoke rising, zigzag of Native American clothing, Shape- triangle of horses, rectangle of two Native Americans, circle-skull eye socket Where do you see detail, what details do you see? Horses rein, parts of guns, decoration of knife blades, earrings of Native Americans, clothing of cowboys, grass, horse muscles, saddle straps, Native Americans’ muscles How does the painting make you feel? Excited, nervous, suspenseful, curious How do you think the Native Americans are feeling? Confident, nervous, cautious, careful, determined, anxious, tired The Native Americans are sending a smoke signal message, what do you think they are saying? The attack is on, the attack is over, we are gathering for war, the war is over… What objects in the painting tell you that the Native American’s are ready for war? Rifles, war paint on the Native Americans, feathers on Native Americans, bobbed tails on horses If you were the artist, how would you change the painting? Color, time of day Do you like the painting? Why or why not? Would you want this painting in your house? Why or why not? Do you feel the painting is realistic? The subject matter is real, people and horses very detailed and accurate but the painting of some of the landscape is more impressionistic than realistic, a Romantic view of the West, Native American as warrior